1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a write-once recording medium, and more particularly, to a method of recording a temporary defect list on a write-once recording medium, a method of reproducing the temporary defect list, an apparatus for recording and/or reproducing the temporary defect list, and the write-once recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Defect management involves recording data, which has been recorded at a location of a recording medium where a defect is generated, at another location of the recording medium when the data cannot be reproduced normally, thereby preventing data loss caused by the generation of the defect.
Conventionally, defect management is classified into defect management using a linear replacement method and that using a slipping replacement method. The linear replacement method is the replacement of a data area where a defect is generated with a spare area of the data area where a defect is not generated. The slipping replacement method is not using the data area where the defect is generated, and skipping to and using a next data area where no defect is generated.
The linear replacement and slipping replacement methods have been mainly applied to discs, such as DVD-RAM/RW (digital versatile disk-random access memory/rewritable), on which data can be re-recorded and which allow recording by random access.
Recently, several solutions have been considered to perform defect management using a data recording and/or reproducing apparatus in a write-once recording medium in which data cannot be eliminated or erased once the data is written.
Defect management for write-once recording media using linear replacement will now be described in detail. A data recording and/or reproducing apparatus that receives a user data recording command and user data from a host records the user data in cluster units, which are data recording units. After the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus performs a verify-after-write operation, if a defect is generated in a cluster of a user data area where the user data is recorded, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus records the user data in a spare area included in a data area.
During a predetermined time interval when data is being recorded, or after completion of single data recording, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus creates a temporary defect list (hereinafter referred to as a TDFL) containing location information of clusters of the user data area where defects are generated and location information of replacement clusters of the spare area where the user data recorded in the defective clusters is rewritten. Then, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus records the created TDFL in a temporary disc management area (hereinafter referred to as a TDMA). Also, after the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus records the created TDFL in the TDMA, it records pointer information indicating the location where the TDFL is recorded.
When the write-once recording medium is re-loaded into the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus reads out the TDFL from the write-once recording medium and stores the read TDFL in a memory. When additional data is recorded on the write-once recording medium, if new defective clusters are generated, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus rewrites data recorded in the defective clusters in the replacement clusters of the spare area. Thereafter, in addition to the TDFL stored in the memory, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus creates an updated TDFL containing location information of the newly-generated defective clusters and location information of replacement clusters corresponding to the newly-generated defective clusters, records the updated TDMA, and records pointer information indicating the location where the updated TDFL is recorded.
When the write-once recording medium is loaded into the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus for the purpose of reproducing the user data, the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus first accesses the TDMA, obtains the pointer information indicating the location where the updated TDFL is recorded, and obtains the updated TDFL. The data recording and/or reproducing apparatus can then reproduce the user data without error by referring to the updated TDFL.
As described above, since the TDFL is critical information for user data reproduction, the TDFL should be recorded with high reliability. Thus, during the recording of the TDFL, the verify-after-write operation is performed in the same way as during the recording of user data. Therefore, if a defective cluster is generated, data recorded in the defective cluster is rewritten in another cluster of the TDMA.
According to the related art, if the size of a TDFL corresponds to at least two clusters and the TDFL is recorded in at least two clusters, the verify-after-write operation is performed and the TDFL is rewritten in other clusters if a defective cluster is generated. However, the TDMA is smaller than the data area and the amount of data that can be stored in the TDMA is not large. Accordingly, when defect management is performed for the TDFL according to the related art, the TDMA is quickly used up.